Sydney-Friends
SydneyFriends Title
Sydney Friends - Linking cultures through friendship

 


Are you learning a new language, or are you interested in learning a new one? Check out our useful hints on how to learn your language. Including, SydneyFriends materials, online courses, self study, schools, and other goodies to learn that language!


English

Do you have a question about English? Want to check your grammar? Post your question here, anonymous answers will appear in the forum.

One common question among English language learners is "What is a good way to learn English?". Of course there are many ways that have been tested and tried including:

  • listening to the radio
  • watching and listening TV
  • mimicking people
  • language audio tapes/CD's
  • language learning videos
  • self study programs such as Pimsleur
  • English Learning textbooks
  • private lessons
  • write out the dictionary/encyclopedia
  • read read read
  • write write write
  • go to places to practice speaking, such as a language exchange group
  • make English speaking friends
and the list goes on.
However the first and most important piece of advice I give people is that they need to have an "I Can" attitude, as I believe in the Law of Attraction, so if people are always saying how bad their English is, then they will attract that kind of English, however if they believe they are speaking great English, or are on the path to speaking great English then that is also what they will attract. Attitude is very important when learning a language, (or taking on any task).

Improving your reading and listening skills at the same time.
One great way to improve your listening skills is to listen to online streaming videos or online radio, some sites have both video and transcripts, so you can read along as you listen to the audio script.
Some excellent sites for that include:


Please email me if you have some good resources..(I hope I can get some good Australian ones here too)

A great site to learn English if you are from China, Khmer, France, PNG, Indonesia or Vietnam is ABC: Radio Australia's "Learn English" site, they have practical courses, including podcasts to download. Click here to view the site.

Japanese

Japanese has always been my favourite langauge to learn. If I get enough interest from people I will continue to make lessons. Here is my first lesson I made - Fundamentals of the Japanese Language. Feel free to download this document.

Other languages - If you would like to leave a learning resource for a language, please write to us - here - .

Hopefully we will have more up before our opening party.

SydneyFriends Online TV!

One good way to study a language is to mimic people on TV.
Just press play to view the Sky News channel below, double click the middle of
the TV screen to view the full screen, press esc to return to normal view. Happy viewing!